Thursday, May 24, 2012

Burgers in the Bodleian? Professors fume (quietly)

Academics are aghast that manuscripts and rare books in one of the world's great research libraries may soon be mauled by undergraduates munching fast food.

Paradoxically, what many see as a threat to the status of the Bodleian, founded in 1602, results from a £1 million ($1.6m) grant from the University of Oxford's most generous benefactor.

The university accepted the grant from the Oxford Martin School, a research institute endowed in 2005 by James Martin, an IT entrepreneur who has donated almost £100m to Oxford.
In return,the school gets exclusive use of the university's Old Indian Institute building, displacing a large collection of history books.